ference to the degraded condition and distress of the agricultural labourers. At the beginning of the reign of William IV. he spoke of Wellington's Cabinet as

a Government of mere expediency, full of vacillating proposals, never daring to propose and support measures on their own proper grounds." On the defeat and resignation of the Wellington Cabinet at the close of the year, the Duke took office under Lord Grey, becoming Postmaster - General December 14, 1830, though still looked upon as in many respects a Tory. He of course supported the Reform Bill (declining to form a new Ministry when the King hesitated to create new Peers), and the other measures of the Grey Government, until the Irish Church question arose in 1834, when he separated from his colleagues, and resigned in the summer of that year. He did not again take office, but became a general supporter of Sir Robert Peel, except on points respecting subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles and the grievances of Dissenters, on which he maintained his former opinions. He next appeared prominently as an advocate of the Corn Laws, and the leader of the Protectionist party in the House of Lords, and continued to hold these opinions (as he did all his old opinions) to the end of his life, and after Protection was abandoned by every one else. He was always a strong opponent of the Game Laws, being, as he said, almost revolutionary in his feelings on this point. Although he kept a large racing stud, and made Goodwood famous on the turf, he was not a betting man; andthough a great sportsman, he had a great detestation of the wholesale slaughters called battues. He was an enthusiastic agriculturist, and breeder of

Southdown sheep, &c.; a great advocate of prison reform; and a high-minded, open-hearted, and most amiable English gentleman, perhaps the best specimen of the class presented in latter times. His untiring, and at last successful, advocacy of the claims of his Peninsular fellow-soldiers to a medal, against the Duke of Wellington's somewhat ungracious opposition, exemplifies the whole tone of his character.

He died October 21, 1860, and was succeeded by his eldest son, the present and sixth Duke, Charles Gordon-Lennox, who has always been a consistent Tory, and has held office as President of the Poor-Law Board.

The character of the Lennoxes, as traceable in their history, seems simple. They are Stuarts of a more genial and manly type than the ruling line of that illfated race, but with a pride of birth more than usually conspicuous from the circumstances of their descent. They have done little for England, but they have generally felt as Englishmen, and have not, on the whole, been unworthy of the position to which accident at first raised them.

The Howards.

HE Premier Peer of England is a

Howard, and a line of poetry about "all the blood of all the Howards has made their name almost synonymous with aristocracy. Fortunate marriages have made them the representatives of some really old houses, as the Bohuns, who were Barons in the Cotentin before the Conquest, but their own pedigree is not a very great one. The earliest of the name who rose high enough to be recorded was SIR WILLIAM HOWARD or HAWARD, one of the special justices appointed 21st Edward I., 1293, to hold assizes throughout the realm-perhaps the very greatest reform ever introduced in England. Mr Henry Howard, of Corby Castle, in his memorials of the family, refers to deeds which indicate that Sir William had a grandfather; but as neither he nor his son were of any mark, we may assume the fact without comment, merely remarking that it is probable, from the name, that the family were Saxon. Sir William held assize in the West, and on October 11, 1297, he was created one of the judges of the Common Pleas, and as such he continued to act till 1308; but there is no evidence of his having been Chief Justice,

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as the peerage-makers have it. The post paid, and Mr Howard reports that he finds Sir William adding to his estate by purchases in Wiggenhall, East Winch, and neighbouring townships in Norfolk. His first wife, Alice, was a daughter of Sir Robert Ufford, the ancestor of a family which afterwards became Earls of Suffolk, but she left no issue. He married, secondly, another Alice, daughter of Sir Edmund de Fitton, or Phitton, and sister of Sir John de Fitton, on whose death she inherited part of the manor of Fitton, in Wiggenhall St Germain's, where that family resided, their mansion being still indicated by the surrounding moat, of about an acre in extent. She resided at East Winch, near Lynn, with her husband, and the Fitton and Howard coats of arms are still existing in the windows of the church of Wiggenhall, St Mary's. The judge was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir John Howard, who was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk from 1318 to 1322, and Governor of the Castle of Norwich and Commissioner of Army in Norfolk in 1327. He purchased many manors in Suffolk and Norfolk, particularly East Winch, East Walton, Walton-juxtaKirbroke, Wiggenhall, Wirmegey, Tirrington, West Walcot, South Wotton, North Wotton, Great Walsingham, and the Honour of Clare, and married Joan, daughter of Richard de Cornwall. His son by her, Sir John Howard, was in 1335 constituted Admiral in the North Seas, and died after 1388. His son, by Alice de Bosco, or Bois, heiress to her brother, Robert de Bois, of Fersfield, was Sir Robert de Howard, who died, in 1388, before his father, and left by Margaret, daughter of Lord Scales, a son, Sir John, who was of

considerable importance in the Eastern Counties, and Sheriff of the counties of Essex, Hertford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, and Knight of the Shire for Cambridge. He died at Jerusalem on pilgrimage, November 17, 1437. He was twice married, and his granddaughter Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Howard, his son by his first wife, who died in his father's lifetime, marrying John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, carried away most of the Howard estates. By his second wife, Alice, daughter of Sir W. Tendring, of Tendring Hall, and Stoke Neyland, Sir John (the elder) had two sons, Sir Robert and Henry. Of Sir Robert (born about 1384-5) it is recorded that during the French wars of Henry V. "he kept the coasts of France about Calais or thereabouts with a fleet wherein he had 4000 men, viz., mariners and others." The (probable) portrait of him on painted glass represents a pleasing open countenance, with fair, straight, flowing hair much resembling that of his mother, who was a great beauty of those times. His own position as a younger son was not a brilliant one, as the birth of an heiress to his elder brother, and her subsequent marriage (in the year 1428-9) to the Earl of Oxford, stripped him of the greater part of his patrimonial possessions. Nor was the match which he made after his French campaign, however brilliant in point of family, one which brought any addition to his present income, or promised any substantial advantage to his descendants. He wooed and married the Lady Margaret Mowbray, a daughter-probably the eldest daughter-of Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Nottingham and Earl Marshal, Plantagenet and Capet by the mother's side, and husband of Elizabeth, the daughter